Grand Rounds Submission Guidelines

Building from comments and questions from the earlierannouncements, here's the comprehensive submission guidelines to next week's Grand Rounds.

submissions are due by 11:59 PM EST Monday night 9/27

Grand Rounds will posted on Tuesday 9/28 at 7 AM

Send nick -at- blogborygmi.com the link to your post, the title, and a brief description

One entry per blogger

Recent posts between 400 and 1000 words are preferred

Posts are to be written for a general audience (more on this below)

I'll be organizing the links into categories, based on what's submitted. Potential topics include:

Patient encounters -- something that made you laugh, cry, or gaze into the abyss

A profile of someone in medicine

Medical education -- experiences, insight, generalizations

Implications of a new basic science discovery

Commentary on a new study

-- what it means for patients and practitioners
-- why this new test / device / pill will save us / bankrupt us / kill us in our sleep

Commentary on health care delivery

-- an experience you've had with a limitiation or success of the system
-- your theories about what would improve access, outcomes
-- something new and interesting about insurance, malpractice, regulations
-- drug companies, and why they're so evil and / or saving lives
-- why recent data about health care is all wrong / fine as is / not discouraging enough

Remember, the target audience here is NOT other medical bloggers, or people in the health care industry. It's the educated but nonmedical readers coming from general-interest blogs. So write for that audience, if only for this one post (even if your blog is about echocardiography). The idea is to introduce the wider world to the growing medical blogosphere -- the doctors, nurses, students, administrators, EMTs, techs, and patients who blog.

More on style of the opinions pieces: I'm looking for informative, well-argued posts, from diverse political perspectives. One-sided screeds? Not so much (unless it's really entertaining).

Two questions that are frequently asked:

1. Is Grand Rounds just limited to bloggers in the health care field? No -- I'll look at any medical-related post. There are some patient-perspective blogs in particular that I hope submit links. But like I said, the point of Grand Rounds is to promote the nascent medical blogosphere, and submissions from health-related blogs will take priority.

It's the host's discretion as to what gets included. This week, that's me. In addition to linking to your posts, I'll be providing the groan-inducing puns, and snarky comments, that readers have come to expect and dread. It's nothing personal.

If you're looking for more guidance, check out other linkfests such as Carnival of the Vanities. Grand Rounds was conceived as along those lines, like a Carnival of the Caregivers.

If you've got more questions, email me or comment below! And we're looking for hosts for October 12, 19, and 26th. I look forward to your submissions!